It Was the Nightingale

by Henry Williamson

  “I went otter-huntin’ once,” said ‘Mister’. “Ernest took me in the Tamp. I must say all my sympathies were with the otter. Although we didn’t see one, it was a blank day. Like most of my days,” he sighed, putting on the headphones again.

  “I expected you to dinner, Lucy. Did you forget?”

  “No, Mrs. Smith. I meant to telephone, but Fiennes had taken the office key by mistake.”

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  She blushed. “I don’t usually eat much supper.”

  “What about you?” Mrs. Smith said to Phillip.

  “I’m not really hungry, thank you.”

  “But you must be starvin’, all the way from London! When did you go up? This mornin’, and from Devon! Lucy dear, tell me the truth, has he had any dinner?”

  “Oh dear,” said Lucy. “I quite forgot to ask you when you arrived, and all that long way, too!”

  “No, really, thank you, I’m not hungry,” he insisted.

  “Come and show me the new bike,” said ‘Mister’, taking off the headphones.

  It began to rain while they were outside, and at ‘Mister’s’ suggestion Phillip wheeled the Norton into the garage, where it stood beside the oily little Alldays & Onion vehicle with its narrow tyres, bullock’s-horn handlebars, and push-bike brakes.

  “A beastly thing,” lamented ‘Mister’. “Either it won’t spark, or the mixture is wrong and it spits through the carburettor, or it over-heats, or the chain breaks. I’m sick of it, I can tell you. I’ve asked the Boys to look out for something better, though I doubt if they’ll succeed. The trouble is lack of money, don’t you know.” He began to sibilate tunelessly; then, turning to the younger man, he said, “You know, old chap, it isn’t cricket to go about with Lucy as you do, with no formal engagement announcement. I know you Bohemians, but dash it all, there’s her people to think of. As for Pa, he’s too easygoin’ for words. His wife wouldn’t have died of consumption if he’d looked after her. Tim, you know, arrived only eleven months after Lucy, and Margaret was pretty well knocked up with it, I can tell you! Pa allowed her to visit a cottage where the woman had consumption, and she caught it there. He’s far too easy-goin’ about everything. Well, old chap, I think you ought to do the decent thing, and put the engagement in The Morning Post.”

  ‘Mister’ pulled sadly at one half of his ragged moustache. “Between you and me and the gate-post,” he continued, kicking the smooth back tyre of The Onion with his foot, “I’m not too well. This beastly asthma gets me down. That reminds me, I must get The Onion repaired, so that I can go and see Ness at Salisbury. I’ve been trying to get there a long time now, you know, but whenever I’ve got ready to go either The Onion breaks down or this beastly asthma gets me first. I’d like you to meet Ness one day, and tell me what you think of her. We’ve been great friends for over thirty years, did I tell you? It only goes to show you how deep it is!”

  ‘Mister’ sighed, and mistaking the other’s silence for sympathy, continued his confessions. “You mustn’t think, you know, that because a man has passed sixty he ceases to feel hope, or loses any of the feelings he had as a youngster! Not by a long chalk! I feel just the same now as I did when I was your age, don’t you know, the only trouble is one wears out, like The Onion.” He regarded it with a sigh. “We’ve had some times together, The Onion and I. I’m quite attached to it in a way, we’ve had some fine rides in our time. I’d hate to get rid of it, even if I could. Who’s got your old bike?”

  “A cousin of mine.”

  “That was a fine machine, you know. Well, I must have one with a clutch and gears, my heart won’t stand paddlin’ off any more. This rain will make the roads slippery, be careful as you go home, won’t you? We’d both be most unhappy if Lucy took a toss. By the bye, I hate to ask you, old chap, but could you manage a loan of a fiver?”

  “I’m awfully sorry, ‘Mister’, but I’ve only got ten bob on me.”

  “A cheque will do, old fellow. I’d really be most frightfully grateful, don’t you know. But not here.” He glanced around. “I’ll be comin’ over to the Boys tomorrow. You’ll be stayin’ there, I expect? You don’t know how lucky you are, you’ve got your life before you; I’ve got most of mine behind.” And taking Phillip’s arm in a friendly way, ‘Mister’ led him into the house. As they entered the drawing-room Phillip observed that Mrs. à Court Smith hid a black book under a copy of The Lady on the table beside her.

  It was now raining steadily. Mrs. Smith said they could spend the night there if they wished, there was plenty of room, but Lucy said she ought to go home, as there was a lot of work to be done; and after goodnights they set off in the darkness.

  Phillip returned by another way, a lane more tortuous than the route they had come by, but nearer. He went slowly, anxious about skids, and was turning a corner about a mile from the house when the back-wheel slid away from under him, the handlebars turned askew, they were falling. The lights went out as they struck the stony road.

  The engine was racing and he wondered if it would catch fire. He got up stiffly and went to where it was gyrating in the darkness, the back wheel spinning; and groping for the handlebars, managed to lift the valve-lifter and stop the engine. His right knee hurt, his right hand was bleeding. He stood there, overcome by a sense of disaster.

  Lucy was getting up from the road near him. “It’s the machine that matters.”

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  If he had really loved her, would he not have hastened to find out if she were hurt?

  “Are you hurt?” she repeated anxiously.

  “Lucy, I think you ought to realise why I sent you those articles in The Daily Crusader by Arnold Bennett’s wife, revealing what a fastidious, nervy person he was. All writers are fearful egoists, that’s why they start as writers! They can’t compete with the world on the world’s terms, so they invent their own, and credulous, kind people like you accept them on those terms—sometimes! But the sensible ones regard them, and quite rightly, as Pa does The Brothers Karamazov which he gave back to me when you went for a cushion. It’s a great book that strives to find the truth about human nature, and so find clarity.”

  “Oh, Pa wouldn’t understand a book like that!”

  The rain fell gently, the clouds were passing. A star shone in a space above. He went to look at the machine. It was lying in the long grass, half hidden by umbelliferous plants at the side of the lane. He tried to lift it up; it was much heavier than the old Norton. The handlebars were askew. One foot-rest was bent. He lugged it up, and turned off the leaking petrol.

  “Is it all right, Phillip?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He managed to pull it back on the stand. Lucy, waiting in the dimness, said, “Don’t be unhappy. Your lovely new Norton! And your hand is bleeding. I think we ought to go back to ‘Mister’s’, so that I can wash and dress it.”

  “I couldn’t face them again. Why don’t you go back, you mustn’t get wet. I’ll stay here, and repair it.”

  “I rather like the rain. It’s my fault, too, it was me on the back that made it skid. I’m so sorry, dear. And please don’t worry about Mrs. Smith, or Pa. What they say or think doesn’t matter in the least.”

  “But it does! Cousin Willie was right! Dick Sheppard knows, too, but he won’t live long! He’s nervously exhausted, seeing all the human world disintegrating into another war just as Willie said——” He turned away; returned to say desperately, “Lucy, I must tell you the truth! I am not a pleasant person at all. I can’t really bear what most people think, and say. I pretend to be tolerant, at times, because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, also I know I am like them. But, after Barley’s death, I realized that it is wrong to stifle one’s intuitions—especially when things are obviously going wrong, out of a pose of good manners—which in my case is only a veneer.”

  But he knew he was not being really truthful: he was diverting his real thoughts, afraid to hurt her feelings. Barley underst
ood: Lucy gave all her sympathy, but did she understand? Even to himself he could not face the answer.

  When she did not reply he got astride the machine, and managed to jerk the handlebars round to normal. Turning on the petrol, he flooded the carburettor, and kicked the starter. The engine fired after a few kicks. He opened the throttle, the engine raced; closed it, the engine ticked over. But the lights would not switch on. He let in the clutch and moved forward. The machine seemed all right. He put it on the stand again.

  “There now, it isn’t so bad after all, is it?” she said. “It might have been worse, but you are a careful driver.”

  “But are you hurt, Lucy?”

  “No, I fell on the grass, where it was soft. But your hand——”

  “Only a scratch. What luck, the Norton may be all right, after all! You must think me a miserable, selfish creature!”

  “Of course I do not,” she said. “I know exactly how you’ve been looking forward to your lovely new bike. I am sure that Ernest or Tim will be able to put the lights right in the morning.”

  The half-moon was now clear, and after he had washed his hands in running water, they started off, slowly in bottom gear, then in second, while confidence came back with steady progress, and they got home without further mishap, to find that the others had gone to bed. She put on a kettle for tea, and while it was heating she bathed his right hand and put iodine on the broken skin, and a bandage, while he sat in Pa’s chair and held The Morning Post with his good hand, and sipped milky, sugary tea. The effect was relaxing.

  “I’ll send in an announcement after submitting it for Pa’s approval.”

  “I am sure it would please him,” replied Lucy happily, as she went into the kitchen to cook eggs and bacon with fried bread.

  While she was there Tim came in, sniffing eagerly. “Well, well, well! Do my eyes deceive me, or do I behold the delectable sight of eggs and bacon? Will I have some, do you ask? Will I not!”

  “You shall, Tim, you shall!” cried Lucy. “There’s enough for all.”

  The three sat down together.

  “By Jove, this food is good!” exclaimed Phillip, after the meal. “Lucy, I must tell you that I do understand, really, why Pa thought as he did about The Brothers Karamazov! All life is an idea, and ideas change with time. The great thing is to see life calmly, like Tourgenieff. I say, the Savoy Bands are on now—let’s listen!” He put on a pair of headphones, and lay back in Pa’s chair, stretching out his legs.

  “Quick, Lucy, quick! The nightingale is singing!”

  *

  In the drawing-room at Ruddle Stones, ‘Mister’ was also lying back in his chair, headphones adjusted to hear the Stock Exchange prices. For the past quarter of an hour he had been reading the black book which his wife had hidden when Phillip had returned from showing him the new Norton. The paying guests had, thank goodness, gone to bed. Now at last they could talk freely.

  “What do you think of it for Lucy?” asked Mrs. à Court Smith, pointing at the black book on the reading stand beside her husband.

  That gentleman, with a weary gesture of patience extended so far that no resilience was left to him, lifted an earphone to catch her words. Mrs. Smith repeated the question.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute, I want to hear if my Rio Chakko-stumer Tin Mines are quoted in the Stock Exchange Prices.”

  ‘Mister’ still lived in the hope of one day hearing that these mines, shares in which he had bought in 1903, and from which no dividend had been paid since 1904, were to be reopened. They had, in fact, never been dug, but ‘Mister’ did not know this. His wife’s business training in a solicitor’s office had, however, given her a more realistic attitude towards human activities.

  “Of course they won’t be! They’ve been derelict for more than twenty years now. Why don’t you do what I ask you, and read that book?”

  Mrs. à Court Smith, realising Lucy’s inexperience, her lack of social life beyond a few Christmas dances in neighbouring houses, had endeavoured to fill the gap as far as she could without direct words of advice regarding the realities of marriage. Recalling her own inexperience as a bride, she had answered an advertisement in one of her weekly papers; and in due course a stout black book had arrived from a Ludgate Hill publisher in the advertised plain cover.

  The author had a number of letters after his name which seemed impressive: but she had regarded doubtfully his photograph opposite the title page.

  “Nothing about Rio Chakko-stumer,” muttered ‘Mister’, taking off the headphones.

  “What do you think of his photograph?” asked Mrs. à Court Smith, pointing at the book.

  “He looks a bit of a vampire to me, Lal, old girl.”

  ‘Lal old girl’ was a survival from ‘Lallafanny’, pre-marital nickname in a period of pseudo-bliss before ‘Mister’ had discovered, as he put it to himself, her true nature. After marriage the endearment had become abbreviated with his moods to ‘Lally’, followed by ‘Lal’, after which the diminutive remained. At times even ‘Lal’ was too much.

  He had first seen ‘Lallafanny’ in the office of his solicitor in London. She had then seemed, with her short but comely figure, to be good enough for second-best (he had never dared to propose to Ness). She spoke the Queen’s English, and knew more or less how to conduct herself.

  “Now read those pages I’ve marked with a marker.”

  ‘Mister’ turned to a chapter with the caption The Pitfalls of Marriage, and began searching for titivating details, but without success, since the pages were inspired by intense moral indignation.

  “He’s been bitten himself, if you ask me,” he pronounced moodily.

  “How has he been bitten? Are you at the right place, I wonder? It concerns the bride, not the groom. Yes, that place where I’ve put in a bit of paper for a marker.”

  ‘Mister’ read half aloud, half to himself:

  ‘“On the hymenal night, which should be an exhibition of good-breeding, and high-toned affectionate joy, too often is the bridegroom driven insensate by a brutal lust of conquest. Deep down in man’s nature is a streak of atavism, a survival from the steaming swamps and murderous jungles of his prehistoric ancestors. Such traits, when a virginal wife becomes his prey, too often rise uppermost in his unholy nature, and he yields himself to the brutal lusts of the flesh, causing his bride to recoil in horror from his bestiality.’”

  ‘Mister’ laid down the book. “Going a bit far, isn’t it?”

  “It could have been expressed better, I agree,” said Mrs. à Court Smith. “But then he’s an American. I saw it advertised in The Lady, and thought it would be just the thing for Lucy to read. The author is a qualified doctor, I suppose? That rigmarole sounds pretty foreign. You can never trust foreigners.”

  ‘Mister’ turned to the title page.

  “Doctor Sylvanus O. Saloman, Associate of Little Rock Academy of Therapeutic Medicine, Arkansas—Associate of Nebraska Homeopathic Institute—G.L.O.B.—whatever that means, of Talahassee—wherever that may be—Founder of Kappa Beta Phi Medicine Hat Ethical and Philosophical Society. It looks a bit odd to me, but then as you say, he’s an American.”

  “They’re nearly all quacks over there, I’ve heard,” remarked Mrs. Smith.

  ‘Mister’ sat up. “I say, you’re not really going to put this into Lucy’s hands, are you, Lal old gel?”

  “It can’t do any harm.”

  “I don’t know so much. It would me, if I were a young gel, don’t you know. What did it cost?”

  “Never you mind.”

  “I don’t like any of it,” he said, and put on the headphones. Mrs. à Court Smith stared at him with the unwinking stare of a toad about to fix a fly. Whatever her own hymenal experiences had been, she certainly was not afraid of ‘Mister’ now.

  “Why bother to read it if it upsets you? But everything upsets you nowadays. Why don’t you do what Lucy’s Pa does, go and dig in the garden? Your liver needs a bigger shaking up than sitting on The Onion can g
ive you.”

  A cry came from the fly. “I’m trying to listen to the nightingale!”

  “It’s too late now. You should have listened earlier on.”

  “I wanted to, but you made me read this beastly book!”

  Moodily ‘Mister’ removed the headphones as the distorted tones of Big Ben came vibratingly through the diaphragm.

  “My battery’s run down again, that’s the trouble,” he muttered.

  Part Five

  LUCY

  ‘If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?’

  Sonnets from the Portuguese

  by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  Chapter 17

  FORMALITIES

  In the early morning sunshine his doubts of the night before seemed worthless; and later, sitting at Pa’s desk, by invitation, he wrote an announcement for The Morning Post. In this spirit he wrote another notice and put it up in the bathroom.

  Invariably after a tub at Down Close the plug was merely pulled up, and the next bather was confronted by an increased high-water mark on the new paint on the bath. At least a dozen lines denoting an equal number of previous immersions were registered there when Phillip, in the spirit of Shakespeare, pinned up his Advertisement.

  THERE IS A TIDE IN THE ABLUTIONARY AFFAIRS OF MAN WHICH RELICT AT THE EBB REVEALS ITS JETSAM.

  “Ha!” exclaimed Tim. “By Jove, that’s rather good!”

  “Do you think Pa will tear it down?”

  “I doubt very much if he will see it.”

  “It’s rather cheek, don’t you think?”

  “Oh no, please leave it up. I think it’s jolly good! You’re perfectly right! People should leave the place clean, after a tub.”

  The Advertisement remained for some days, while only Lucy and Tim took heed of it. The next time Pa had a tub, his tide-line remained near the top of the bath. Phillip used Zog, a tin of which he had placed under the bath, and took down the notice.